Christine Schlonski [0:02]
Hey Gorgeous. This is episode number 178. And we have the amazing Jill Stanton back on the show today.

Jill Stanton [0:09]
Hey, this is Jill Stanton and you’re listening to Heart Sells! Podcast with Christine Schlonski. Enjoy.

Christine Schlonski [0:15]
Well, I’m super pumped to have Jill back today and we are talking about taking small steps for momentum. Everything Jill has learned we’re going to dive in a little bit deeper and continuing the wonderful conversation we already had in the last episode, where we talked about not selling but suggesting or inviting as I like to call it, so I’m super pumped to bring more of Jill to you. Jill is the co-founder of Screw The Nine To Five together with her husband Josh. She is also a new mom. She’s a new mom, has an inappropriate love for trashy tv and isn’t afraid of a tall glass of gin. And that gives her the power together with all the other amazing stuff that is within her to help transform unsatisfied employees into dangerously successful entrepreneurs. So they can work wherever they want, and from wherever they want. Well, I am so super excited to have you back, Jill. Welcome.

Jill Stanton [1:18]
Yeah, I’m so excited. Round two.

Christine Schlonski [1:20]
Round two. Yes. And I love our conversation, especially with, you know, making these little promises to yourself. This doesn’t don’t come up with something like I’m gonna be the first year in business and I’m gonna hit the million-dollar mark. I make myself, I make that promise. And then chances are not that big to actually achieve that goal.

Jill Stanton [1:46]
Yeah. And you just, the minute you set that crazy goal like I’m all for dreaming big. I’m all for that. I believe that you need to know what you want and why you want it but you have to release how. Around how it happens or when it happens. So you can set a million-dollar goal for yourself, for sure. But I would never set a timeline for that. Because what happens if it can happen sooner? Or what happens if it needs to happen later because of certain circumstances coming into your life to veer you in the right direction like there are so many incalculable amounts of ways that things could go your way? I just find that when you set these limitations, or you set these huge, lofty goals, and then get in your head around how it’s going to happen, you set yourself up to fail. Don’t fail, but just get in your head and not enjoy the process of it.

Christine Schlonski [2:41]
Yeah. And you make it difficult like because you make it hard, you make it heavy

Jill Stanton [2:48]
You make it mean something?

Christine Schlonski [2:49]
Yeah

Jill Stanton [2:50]
I think that’s the biggest thing. You make it mean something about you if you haven’t hit it in your finite time limit, but nothing has any meaning. Other than the meaning you give it. And so you could choose an empowering meaning around that, like, “Oh, it didn’t happen within the year because I’m obviously on track for something bigger”, or whatever it could mean, I just think that that’s where a lot of, especially up and coming entrepreneurs tend to trip themselves up as they, they need to prove something. And so they attach all these meanings and interpretations to how their first year, their second year looks. What that means about their ability to be an entrepreneur, and I just think it causes you to self-sabotage.

Christine Schlonski [3:35]
Yeah. Especially when they then go out and realize that selling for themselves is a totally different ballgame. Selling for someone.

Jill Stanton [3:45]
True. A 100%.

Christine Schlonski [3:47]
Yeah. And you mentioned that in our first episode that your first launch just was 0. It was a big fat. Not even a zero. We invested $5,000 into creating an online course. Why did we think it costs $5,000? I don’t know. But for some reason, we were like, “Yep, that sounds like decent spending money to create an online program, $5,000.” So we’re actually in the red $5,000. So, okay, yeah, it was brutal. Yeah, that’s pretty brutal. But you have well recovered.

Jill Stanton [4:21]
Yes, thankfully. I mean, I’m tenacious, so I was never going to sit there and wallow for too long. I think I’d be crap for like a day straight, truthfully. And I definitely went and got day drunk as well, because we’re living in Thailand. So the options were there, and then I picked myself up and go back to it.

Christine Schlonski [4:38]
Awesome. Yeah, I like that. Have a strategy for that as well. To pick yourself up and go back to what needs to get done right. Yeah, until you get it.

Jill Stanton [4:48]
Absolutely, love, having zero expectations lately, like I just like leaning into things and being like, “Let’s have some fun with this”, versus, “I need to make $50,000 or it means I am not good at this.” Do you know what I mean? Like I love going in. Some of my most fun and profitable promotions have had zero expectations behind them just being like, let’s rock some worlds. Let’s have some fun and let’s make some money. One of my favorite sayings is from David Siteman Garland, and he used to say to us, “Worst case scenario, we make a lot of money.” I like that. That’s my kind of vibe.

Christine Schlonski [5:26]
Yeah. That’s awesome. Yeah, I’ve got it. I’ve got to adopt that right away.

Jill Stanton [5:30]
Please do. It’s so good. We say it all the time now, “Worse comes to worst. We make a lot of money.”

Christine Schlonski [5:37]
If it gets better, then you have a lot of fun, you have relationships and so on and so forth.

Jill Stanton [5:42]
Exactly.

Christine Schlonski [5:43]
This is so cool. So do you remember the very, very first thing that you ever sold in your life?

Jill Stanton [5:50]
Oh, yeah, like when I was, well sold. I was a terrible salesperson when I was seven and I wanted to run a backyard Carnival at my house, and my parents were such champions, my dad was the clown. And my mom made all the treats for me to sell. And like they, you know those balloon games at fairs where you throw darts, so we even did that. But my parents wouldn’t let us have darts. So it was just like such so ridiculous. But no one would come to my fair, so I went and took my parent’s money and gave it out for people to come to my fair and/or my carnival. And so I essentially paid for people to come to my Carnival and give me my own money back or my parent’s money back. So yeah, I was not good at it whatsoever. Really just kind of just like, felt my way through it really, like I started bartending when I was 20. And that’s really good with sales because you learn the art of small talk, which can be so useful in sales. I still use it now. I’m a really good conversationalist. I can people my ass off at any point in time. So I think that really helped me build the sales muscle and then just being kinder to myself realizing that, I don’t know, I’ve never trained in sales. I don’t, I didn’t know how to sell and so realizing that anytime you start something where you’re new at it, you’re probably gonna suck at it. So realizing that it’s just like a muscle. It’s like how you learned how to pour a glass of water. So like, you missed the cup and think, “Oh my god, I’m never going to learn how to pour a glass of water.” And I mean, it’s just you figure it out. You do it again, and you aim better. And just allowing yourself the grace to get better at it. The more you practice,

Christine Schlonski [7:48]
Yeah, awesome. And I love how creative you were, I mean, what an idea to take your parent’s money and buy people. Wow, I mean, wow, what a cool story.

Jill Stanton [8:02]
Yeah, I don’t even know if they knew that. I think I just went into my dad’s change tin and like grabbed all of it, but it worked. I got people there. My parents thought I was so good at it. And then I was like, “Yeah, totally. Here’s your money back.”

Christine Schlonski [8:18]
Oh, fun. How fun. Great story. Love it. Yeah, so what from the lifestyle you have now and you know, I’m all about freedom, like freedom is one. It’s probably the most important value I have. Traveling when I want. Doing what I want to do, when I want to do it, whom I want to do. All of that. So what advice could you give people who feel like they’re working way too much, too hard. They don’t get anywhere. I kind of have the feeling that by loosening up, by having more fun, by adopting the worst-case scenario is you make a ton of money.

Jill Stanton [8:56]
Yeah.

Christine Schlonski [8:58]
Because you use shifted from like working really, really hard and your other business to then creating this totally different amazing lifestyle, what kind of mindset shift do people need to make and what would make that journey easier?

Jill Stanton [9:16]
Focusing on revenue, generating activities and opportunities. I think so often people get caught up in the busywork, and they glorified busy, like, “I’m really busy. I’m building my social media.” Is your social media leading to sales? If not, like shelve it for now. Start showing up in groups or get on other people’s podcasts? Like, the thing I prioritize is attention and sales. So attention is this, what I’m doing right now. Building attention and awareness around our brand. I do that by getting on other people’s shows, writing guest posts, writing contributed articles to big platforms, whatever that looks like, creating content for my own site. So I’m a big believer that attention is money online. But the way you build attention is through content and purposeful content, not just like random nonsense content, like what you ate that day for dinner unless you’re a health coach or something. But just prioritizing the revenue-generating activities. I love James Wedmore, his take around this and he says, “Prioritize the 5% of activities that actually make money and shelve the other 95 or higher that out.” So just know that you as the owner of the business, as a CEO, as a company leader, you are in charge of making money like you need to keep as you said, sales are the lifeblood of a business. So how can you as a visionary, as a leader, as a CEO, generate more sales so that you can hire a team, so you can build this up until you can get your message out there in a bigger, more impactful way? I think that needs to be everyone’s biggest focus, versus a lot of the vanity stuff we see happening with, “Oh my God, my likes on this. My shares”, or know whatever this many followers, that’s great, but you can also gain it. Do you know what I mean? What you can’t gain are sales. You can’t gain people trusting you enough to make an investment with you. And that I believe, is a true barometer for how your business is doing at any given point.

Christine Schlonski [11:23]
Yeah, I totally agree. So, what practical steps could that be? So as a CEO, do I need to sit down in the morning and then do those activities first?

Jill Stanton [11:36]
I think you need to identify what is your most productive time. Mine is the morning and now that we have our son in daycare, I’ve taken back all my mornings like they are for me, even like we’ve even structured our week differently now like Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, is CEO time like outside of this interview right now because we scheduled it way long ago before I made this change my schedule Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday are just for Josh and I to work on revenue-generating opportunities or things like content, creating our content batches, whatever that is, or mapping out our next launch or mapping out our next offer or whatever that is Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday is just for us to have CEO time and then Thursday and Friday I work on other people’s schedules. But just being diligent with your time and your energy so that you do have again the energy to pour into figuring out, “How can I make more money? How can I increase my revenue? How can I get more attention and awareness to this brand, so that people get to know me more? They get to like me, they get to trust me”, and when I do make an offer, it’s a no brainer for those people.

Christine Schlonski [12:46]
Yeah, I love it. Love it. And also you trained that muscle. I start with it might feel heavy because obviously if sales don’t feel amazing yet, but you totally can be like a fun game, then you know, you might get scared a little bit. But once you start practicing, and you do it over and over again, and you really take your time you will see and notice a difference in a few short days, maybe even or weeks that people actually buy from you because you did make an offer. You did not forget about it.

Jill Stanton [13:23]
Yes. I think it’s so easy, especially if sales scare you. It’s so easy to keep putting that off. But then all you do is get frustrated as to why you’re not making money. Normally, it’s because you’re not prioritizing it. Normally, it’s because you’re not doing the work it takes to dial in the message, dialing the offer, identify who it’s actually for. Who is the dream person for this and where can I find more of those people?

Christine Schlonski [13:52]
Yeah, yeah, absolutely agree. So, you already mentioned a couple of names. Is there any book you would recommend that really made a huge difference in your life?

Jill Stanton [14:05]
Is it about sales specifically or just a book in general?

Christine Schlonski [14:08]
Well, if it’s a book like that, standing out that no sales books come to mind.

Jill Stanton [14:13]
Yeah, I absolutely have a book that is my life. It was a life shifter for me. I’m on my fifth read of it this year. It’s my Bible. It’s called A Happy Pocket Full of Money. And it is my absolute favorite life read. I’ll read it for the rest of my life. I just think it makes you think about opportunity and the control you actually have over your life in such a new way and it opens you up to making even more money and feeling really great about it. I think a lot of people have like it might not even be a fear of sales. For people it might be negative connotations around money or things they learned about money growing up, ie money doesn’t grow on trees or rich people are greedy or money changes people or rich people are selfish, or you know, Money makes you a bad person or there’s never enough to go around or money’s hard to come by. A lot of these beliefs were ingrained in us at such an early age that we’re not even aware of them. And then when we try to put ourselves out there in a sales capacity, we end up subconsciously somehow sabotaging ourselves, when really it has nothing to do with our sales game. And everything to do with our money, beliefs, and the stuff we’re putting out there subconsciously without even realizing it. I think if you That’s why I absolutely love that book because of it. Every time I read it, I’m like, “Oh my god, I totally do that”, or, “Oh my God, I’ve totally thought that”, I just shine a light on all of these disempowering, nonsupportive beliefs that we tend to just take through life, and it shines a light on them so that they become glaringly obvious and easier for you to to get cancel and upgrade.

Christine Schlonski [16:03]
Yeah, I love it. And the book is right behind me in my bookshelf.

Jill Stanton [16:07]
Oh, no way. I love that. It’s my favorite.

Christine Schlonski [16:11]
Yeah, I bet so that I can take it out like easily it’s not like in line with all the other books. It’s on top.

Jill Stanton [16:18]
It’s a smart move. I have it on my phone as well just in case I’m ever like on a. I was gonna say on a bus but I’m never on a bus. I hate taking the bus. But like if I’m sitting in an appointment waiting for something. Or you know, whatever it is. I’m waiting for my hobby or waiting for a kind of finished daycare, whatever it is. I just always go to that book because it always makes you feel good.

Christine Schlonski [16:32]
Yeah, yeah, it’s an amazing book. I’m going to put a link in the show notes as well. So people can grab that. That’s really cool. And do you have maybe a mantra or personal quote?

Jill Stanton [16:53]
I sure do. My go-to mantra and literally say it to myself every single day, the minute I’m awake enough to realize I’m awake, I tried to be conscious enough to say this. And I say, “I’m the type of chick who gets everything I want.” Just say it all, like over and over again until I started that last. Man, I started that as the summer of 2018. Like, I’ve been saying that to myself for a long freak in time. Now, I just believe it like things coming in my life. And I’m just like, “Oh, that happens because I’m the type of chick who gets everything she wants.” I just backed it up with like, perfect example. I wanted to get my son into daycare. And we were surviving with nannies like this mishmash of three different childcare providers. And it was just the logistics of it was ridiculous, and it was so expensive as well. And I said to Josh, “Wouldn’t it be great if we could just get him into daycare? I’m just gonna see.” I’m just gonna see if we could get them into daycare because everyone tells you it takes like six to 12 months. Put them on the waitlist. Two days later, my top choices like, “Oh, we have a spot opening next month.” And I was like, “See”, it’s because I’m the type of chick who gets everything she wants. Or another example is we were identifying new roles we want to hire in our business. And one is, I mean, our revenue model right now is affiliate marketing. And so we wanted to bring someone on who’s a content creator, who will create product reviews, but in a partnership capacity in that, they get a cut of our profits from the reviews they write, from the commission’s they generate from their content. And so I just put it out there, “You know what, I feel like we’ll find a really great content creator, and we won’t even have to worry about it.” Four days later, one of our old members, who was a blogger, contacted us asking if we knew anyone hiring for content roles, and I was like, “Well, this is obviously meant to be because I’m the type of chick who gets everything she wants. And now she’s on our team.” I mean, I just believe it’s so hard that it keeps proving itself to me. And I believe that that’s the ticket with mantras. Just stick, like figure out or pick one that really embodies how you want to feel or who you want to be. And then say it to yourself all the damn time until you believe it.

Christine Schlonski [19:12]
Yeah, I totally agree. So that’s interesting because, for that, you need to figure out what the chick wants. So that might be, for some people also a challenge that they don’t really know what they want. They know what you know, they don’t want it any worse.

Jill Stanton [19:28]
That’s a great point. I think a lot of people shy away from admitting what they want because they think to themselves, “Well, how would I ever get that?” But again, you don’t have to know how you just need to know what and why. What do I want and why do I want it?

Christine Schlonski [19:42]
Why do you think the Why is so important?

Jill Stanton [19:45]
Because I think that goals without a y”Why” are frivolous. Because it doesn’t give, I mean, God, the universe source, whatever you want to say. It doesn’t give any purpose behind why you want or what you want. It’s just like a frivolous goal. Like, I want to make a billion dollars. But why? The Why is the fuel. The Why is the emotional gasoline for bringing it into your life. I believe at least. I believe that you need to understand why behind, understand the why behind your “Whats” and release the “When” and the “How” and shit will flow into your life so quickly. You’ll be amazed. Yeah,

Christine Schlonski [20:28]
Yeah, love it. And I totally agree. Like whenever you hold on or you make it too tight, or you have like, by December 21, I want to have blah, blah, blah. It has not worked for me.

Jill Stanton [20:45]
The minute December 1 rolls around, you’re like, “Oh my god, I only have 20 days to make it happen.” December 2, “Oh my god, I only have 19 days to make it happen.” And then all you’re doing is focusing on the fact that it’s not happening.

Christine Schlonski [20:57]
Yes.

Jill Stanton [20:58]
That’s why I don’t love assigning the “When” to it or the “How”, because if you try to control how it’s all going to happen, all you’re going to do is focus on the fact that it’s not happening. And that’s just going to perpetuate the fact that it’s not happening.

Christine Schlonski [21:13]
Yeah, totally agree. The great advice you can give is to relax, know what you truly want and why. And you know, admitted at least to yourself, you don’t, if you have something you don’t want to share this about yet. It’s not necessary but believing that you are the check for could have it helps.

Jill Stanton [21:34]
Yeah, and I just keep goalless, dreamless in my notes app. I don’t even think anyone really knows all the dreams and goals I have because I have a lot of them. And as if you’ve read A Happy Pocket Full of Money, he says in that book, like have thousands of goals because it gives the universe a litany of stuff to work off of. Whereas, if you have one goal and that’s to be a millionaire, it’s going to be like Got nothing to go on that because that’s really big.

Christine Schlonski [22:03]
Yeah, yeah, totally awesome. So do you want to share some parting advice of guidance before we finish this wonderful episode?

Jill Stanton [22:13]
I think the best thing anyone could do in a business that is online, in a business in general, the best thing you could do for yourself to make even more sales is focused on the brand awareness and the attention piece, the traffic, the audience. And I think if you prioritize that, above all, and really give it your all, show up and serve, like, give away 90% of your best stuff for free, and give people a really great experience with you in a free capacity. It makes everything so much easier. The more attention you have, the easier everything gets. The more money you make, the more opportunities come in, the better relationships you form, like everything, stems off the back of that attention and that audience. If you can prioritize that, and stop worrying about like the monetary side of things, because I promise you, if you build an audience that really believes in you and your message, the sale side of it is going to be a no brainer.

Christine Schlonski [23:17]
Yeah, yeah, totally, totally. So let’s send people to your amazing podcast and to your website.

Jill Stanton [23:22]
Yeah, please http://screwtheninetofive.com all spelled out. No numbers and the https://www.screwtheninetofive.com/podcast/ is where you can find our podcast.

Christine Schlonski [23:30]
Yeah, love it. Thank you so much for sharing your amazing knowledge. And yeah, those golden nuggets. I really hope that people took a lot of notes and that they take some action because then they are also the chicks who can get what they want.

Jill Stanton [23:48]
Hell yeah, that’s what I’m talking about. Thank you so much for having me.

Christine Schlonski [23:52]
Bye! Well, again, what another great episode and I just love Screw The Nine To Five. It so resonates with me. And I’m quite sure when you are tuning into it that might very well resonate with you as well. It doesn’t matter if you’re still an employee and you are happy where you are. It’s all about finding your own path. And for some people being an employee is just fun. And I totally honor that. There’s nothing wrong with it. But for those who are unsatisfied, it is time to make a change. It is time to take your destiny into your own hands and to find something to give people value and to become that dangerously successful entrepreneur. Hop on over to https://christineschlonski.com/ for the show notes and the transcripts of Jill and also once you’re over there, I’m inviting you to join the Heart-Centered Lead Generation Summit. This is about finding your next client. This is to help you fill your pipeline with amazing clients. So you never have to vary again where your next client is going to come from. And you will find that once you’re over at https://christineschlonski.com/ it’s 40 amazing, super successful world-class entrepreneurs sharing their wisdom with you. And you will learn a ton of actionable stuff that is right for you to implement. Thank you so much for being here. Have a wonderful day, wherever you are in this beautiful world and bye for now.